soft is the heart of a child
by ansera
Summary: Theirs is a history of pain, but their hearts have become hardened against it. Written for mitfordgal for help haiti. Morgan/Hotch pre-slash.


The first case involved four children –all boys, all bright children who had had futures ahead of them—all of whom had been stolen away from their homes, with no apparent break in or anything to even suggest a struggle. Their bodies turned up a week after the kidnapping, signs of sexual abuse and the word 'Freedom' carved into their right arms.

The medical examiner told them that the sexual abuse dated to a week prior to the kidnapping.

They hadn't been able to save the fifth, but the unsub had been caught. A man with signs of knowing acceptance about the fact that he had been caught; with no obvious guilt for the murders that he had committed; who had frozen when Morgan had cuffed him none too gently; who had told Hotch, "I set them free."

"Life sentence, no parole." The phrase made Hotch jerk his head up from where he had been staring at the shine of his shoes. Morgan sat across from him –the rest of the team scattered around the jet—his earplugs dangling, the music loud enough that Hotch could hear the beat of it even with the distance.

Perhaps, though, it wasn't so much that the music was loud that everything else was too quiet.

"What?" Hotch asked, straightening in the seat.

Morgan slouched in his own seat, staring at the tense line of Hotch's back, before repeating, "Life sentence, and no parole. He's not going to get away."

"I didn't think he would," Hotch said honestly.

The unsub had known what he was doing when he did it, he knew that he would be punished for his actions, and if Hotch had interpreted the last words that he had said, he felt no remorse for them.

"Then stop freaking out," Morgan said frankly.

Hotch frowned. "I'm not."

Morgan's brow rose –questioning the claim—and Hotch looked at him steadily, gaze not faltering. Morgan dropped his eyes, shaking his head slightly in defeat, but Hotch didn't feel like he had won that match. In fact, he was sure that they both knew he had lost, even if Morgan was kind enough not to state it aloud.

"Yeah, well, if we were in your office, I'd give you a drink-"

"How would iyou/i give ime/i a drink in imy/i office?" Hotch asked.

"Not like you'd get one yourself," Morgan countered. "I'd get you one of those drinks you've stashed away."

"How fortunate that I have a friend willing to give me my own drinks," Hotch said sarcastically.

Morgan laughed. "Yeah, but since we're not in your office, and I know you won't drink anything here," he looked around the jet, not surprised, since neither of them were the sort to drink themselves into blissful nothingness while thousands of feet in the air, and with work the next day. "We'll save it for next time."

Hotch nodded, wondering if he should feel more uneasy at the fact that they both so readily accepted the fact that there would be a next time.

-|-

iBitter are the tears of a child: Sweeten them./i

-|-

Next time came too soon.

Hotch hoped that he would never get so used to that.

To the disappearance of a child from their backyard. To the questions from their friends as to when Mark or Jenny or George would return. To the cries of parents when they realized that they'd never see their baby girl or boy again. To the pain reflected in the faces of the members of the team because they were just not fast enough or strong enough or smart enough.

He feared that he would, sometimes.

A knock on the door made him look up from the paperwork he had been dutifully working on. Morgan, stepping in before Hotch could say anything, walking over to the small refrigerator that always stored a bottle or two in case of an emergency.

"This is an emergency," Morgan clarified as he pulled out a chilled bottle.

Hotch leaned back, not arguing the statement, not that he could have even if he'd wanted to. "Where's the team?"

"JJ went back to Henry," Morgan started as he poured the drink into two glasses, and Hotch's gaze flickered to the picture of Jack that was permanently on his desk. "Don't know where Rossi went," he continued, without any infliction in his voice to suggest that he wanted to find out. "Emily and Garcia took Reid out for a drink," he ended, "I think Kevin'll meet them at the club."

Hotch nodded, taking the glass that Morgan passed him, lifting it for a moment –a toast to something; maybe the boy they couldn't save, Shawn, or the family he'd left behind, or the kids they'd save tomorrow and the day after—before taking a sip.

"What did his parents say?" Morgan asked after a long moment of silence.

Hotch didn't ask how he'd known that Shawn's parents had spoken to him. "They don't blame us."

Morgan smiled, no humor in the gesture. It didn't matter whether the parents blamed them, they would blame themselves. As they had the last time, and as they would the next. "Nice of them," Morgan offered.

Hotch took another sip, musing over an appropriate answer. "Yes." It was, it would be worse if they did blame them, that Hotch knew from experience.

Elizabeth Cassiopeia Barrowman, 7, who'd had divorced parents and a younger brother. Edward Charlot Fichner, 12, who'd been the only child of a single mother. Nelly Marcias, 4, who'd been one of a set of triplets. The names remained in his mind, along with the heat of their glares and the pinch of their spiteful words.

"No work tomorrow," Morgan said, as though that made anything better.

It did, he would be spending more time with Jack.

Hotch smiled slightly at the thought.

"Jack?" Morgan guessed, and Hotch nodded lightly.

Another long silence.

"His own uncle," Hotch said suddenly, interrupting the silence. "They weren't close." Did it make a difference was the implied question, how close the victim and the unsub were. It wasn't a question for a profiler, it was for Morgan. For people like Morgan and Hotch, people who-

Hotch wasn't allowed to finish the thought before Morgan answered with a, "Yeah, it does."

And Hotch wondered why he'd asked the question, because he already knew the answer.

-|-

iDeep are the thoughts of a child: Quiet them. /i

-|-

Jack said, "Goodbye, Daddy, love you too," before he hung up the phone, but Hotch let the dull ringing tone fill his ear, only the sight of Morgan at the doorway making him replace the phone in its holder.

"What's he up to?" Morgan asked, sitting down in the seat that Hotch was quickly thinking of as 'his'.

"He's learning how to roller blade," Hotch said, smiling at the thought of his son moving along the roadside path, stumbling as he learned the sport.

"Any luck?" Morgan grinned, more easy with his happiness.

Hotch nodded. "He's moved two feet without falling."

"Not bad, I never bothered how to learn, nobody bothered to teach me," Morgan shrugged. "Well, they tried," ipronoun, not pinpointing the gender of the person in question to Hotch/i, "but it didn't work out, I was too busy with other stuff."

Hotch thought sharply, Carl Buford was the only person who could have taught Morgan anything at that point. Morgan wasn't just busy, he would have made a point not to learn anything more than he needed to from the man.

"I didn't learn either," Hotch said, because if Morgan admitted something like that, it seemed only fair that he do the same. "I tried to learn, though, it was popular, and Sean wanted to learn."

"Did he ever pick it up?" Morgan asked, curious.

"By the time I figured it out, skateboarding was the 'in' thing," Hotch admitted.

Morgan laughed.

"Never did skateboarding either, my sister tried it though, Des got pro at it too, beat everyone else in the block," Morgan's eyes brightened then. "Pissed off people."

"Your sister seems like somebody who can take care of herself," Hotch said, tone measured so as not to unintentionally offend. His brother had once told him that it was something he did often, offend people without meaning to. Then again, his brother had used himself as an example, and whenever Hotch offended Sean, he usually meant it.

"Yeah," Morgan agreed. "She kneed this guy when he made fun of her, called her a fag, didn't get caught either. Everyone was too afraid to report her."

The idea of bullies in a school cowering from a skateboarding girl made Hotch smile. "If not skateboarding or rollerblading, what did you do?" Hotch knew the answer to the question –he had read about Morgan's sporting history and his injury as well—but he felt like making conversation. Morgan knew that Hotch knew, and Hotch liked to think that Morgan wanted to make conversation as well.

"Man, if I wasn't on the field running passes, I was on the court playing Horse," Morgan said, mimicking the throw of an imaginary basketball into a hoop. "That's where the money is."

"That's where life is?" Hotch questioned.

Morgan faltered, something flashing in his eyes –less heated than anger, more fiery than regret, isomething/i Hotch couldn't place his finger in—before the grin reappeared. "Exactly, and you'd do anything to keep that life."

Hotch looked at Morgan carefully. "Anything."

Morgan nodded. "Anything."

Hotch didn't ask anything else, because there was nothing else to ask. Morgan would do anything, did do everything—to get his life, and Hotch- he had done the same. They all knew it, the people on his team. You'd do anything to get a proper life, and the people he caught on every job were just proof of that.

Absolutely anything.

-|-

iSharp is the grief of a child: Take it from him. /i

-|-

Donald Todds hadn't stopped crying.

The thought struck Hotch as he sat on the couch in his office, that he had left the best friend of the victim, Nathaniel Griffin, crying as he had left. If not for the fact that it would take a trip in the jet that he wasn't allowed, he would have returned to comfort the boy.

Morgan was seated next to him, and for no specific reason, Hotch knew that Morgan was thinking about the exact same thing.

Nate –because he didn't like his full name, only his father had used his full name and now his father was behind bars anyway—would be cremated in one week. His mother had extended an invitation to Hotch, but he had turned it down, mainly because of the insistent tug of Morgan's hand on his shoulder as the other man told him to ijust sit down and stop thinking or you'll give yourself an aneurysm/i that Hotch had responded to because his mother had said the same thing.

Hotch's father would stand up and tell his mother to let the boy fucking study because some use has got to come from the fag of a kid she'd given him. According to Mrs. Griffin, Mr. Griffin had said the same thing. The words changed, of course, but the meaning behind it was the same.

"He's done for," Morgan said softly, the whisper louder than it should have been in the quiet of the office.

"What was your Dad like?" Hotch asked, sharp and quiet and sudden. He looked as surprised as Morgan that the question had been asked, but he didn't take it back.

Morgan relaxed after a moment, as though sensing no ill intention. "He was good. Used to play ball with me when he could, not too often, but he tried. He babied Des, we all did, but he did especially. He used to let her blow the candles on his birthday cake, and me and Sarah'd be upset, so he'd give us the nicest part of the cake. He-" Hotch didn't interrupt when Morgan's voice cracked, only waited for the man to continue. "He wanted to make everything good, you know? Wanted to be the good guy, the one who puts the bad guys in jail and the one who all the kids wanted as a Dad."

Hotch nodded in understanding, not of the situation, since his father was nothing like Morgan's, but of the ideal. As a father, he could relate.

"That's why he stopped the robbery," Morgan continued. "Didn't need to, places got robbed all the time around there, you know that you don't mess with it. But, he wanted to be Superman. Except he wasn't bulletproof," the sardonic edge to the sentence made Hotch wince.

"At least he wanted to make the world a better place for you," Hotch said, as though that were a comfort.

Morgan seemed to consider it one. "I looked for Superman after that, couldn't find one." He thought he had, Hotch guessed, but Morgan had been proven wrong time and time again. Then, Morgan turned to look at him. "But you're a regular old superhero aren't you?"

"Of course, with the younger brother who shares a close bond with me and the parents who had a loving relationship and my own perfect family, with a child who thinks I can do no wrong."

This time, it was Morgan who winced.

Hotch carried on, ignoring Morgan's hand on his arm –a soothing weight—"Instead, my brother thinks that I'm trying to force him into something I'm not, my parents were creatures with little strength of my character, and my child doesn't get enough attention from the only living parent he has left."

Morgan moved closer. "You can only change what's in the 'now', Hotch. Jack knows you love him, and the last time I saw your brother he looked plenty happy with that shop of his. The other two," Morgan paused. "Well, we're all pretty fucked up, aren't we?"

Hotch let out a startled laugh at the rhetorical question.

"There's JJ," he pointed out after a while.

"Oh yeah, because there's something so right about a girl who has nightmares of people she could save, and can't even have a proper family because she's so sure that something will go wrong," Morgan said sarcastically.

Hotch smiled. There was something almost peaceful about the idea that within his team, no one had had it easy.

It was cruel, perhaps sadistic, to like the fact that they'd all suffered in some way or the other. That they were all suffering with him even now, with their job and their lifestyle and the fact that they wouldn't change it for the life of them. That they would all continue to suffer for the rest of their lives because nobody could escape the faces of the dead people that they couldn't save and the past that none of them could put to rest—not him, not even Morgan.

Then Morgan lifted his arm and rested it across his shoulders, and if felt perfectly iright/i.

-|-

iSoft is the heart of a child: Do not harden it. /i


End file.
